


Russian Rules

by AdamantSteve



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Get Together, M/M, Meddling Friends, Truth or Dare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 02:44:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdamantSteve/pseuds/AdamantSteve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint and Phil are separately subjected to Truth or Dare.<br/>For the Truth Or Dare square on my bingo card for Trope Bingo!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Russian Rules

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't realise this wasn't porn until I was posting it. What is happening to me?  
> Betaed by [Dunicha](http://dunicha.tumblr.com).  
> NB I edited the rating to Teen because of a swear word.

A breeze rattles the rafters of the shack Clint and Natasha are holed up in, a night on a thin mattress with a towel for a blanket til morning when they'll be picked up by an extraction team. They've had their celebratory meal and a bottle of wine, expensive and illegal, and so they hunker down to sleep.

 

"You wanna?" Natasha says in the dark, leg draped over Clint's thigh. 

"Nah," Clint replies after a beat. He doesn't usually turn her down, and after a successful op... She lets his disinterest hang in the air for a moment to see if he'll fill the silence, but he's too wise to Natasha's game. She sighs. "Fine. Then play a game with me." 

Clint laughs in the darkness and rolls onto his side so he'd be looking at her if he could see. "Alright."

"Truth or dare."

" _Nat_ ," he says, long suffering.  She pokes him in the arm. "You want to hear the dare first?" 

"No, just out with it," he replies, knowing full well that just the asking of the question will give her all the answers she needs, even in the dark.

"Do you have a thing for Coulson?"

Clint sighs and she can hear him lick his lips as he considers his response, more than well aware that he's given everything away already. "No comment," he replies at last. She rests a hand gently on his neck to stroke next to his ear. "And you're not going to do anything about it, are you?" 

"Nat," he says again. They've had this kind of conversation before and it always ends the same way: Clint refusing to believe that anyone would want to actually date him. The odd fuck here and there maybe, but never more. Natasha's seen it happen too many times to think about. He falls asleep thinking about Coulson like he has countless nights before.

 

\--

 

The op went well, extraction is scheduled to touch down in a matter of hours, once it's light enough to land without a runway. Phil, Fury, Maria and Sitwell make their way down to the bar they always go after a successful op, loud and easy and the antithesis of every other thing they've had to do the last few weeks. 

 

Over nachos and beer after beer, each of their backs growing looser as they relax and let the alcohol seep into their bones. Grins all around as they toast again to an op well done until the three of them exchange glances and Phil senses them moving in on him like sharks. They're all merry enough to do it like it's a joke but he knows better. 

 

"Truth or dare!" Jasper calls, his pate shiny with sweat from the bar that's grown warmer as more people have taken to the dance floor. Maria grins and nods, "yeah! I'll get shots!" before she ducks away to buy a bottle of something green that Phil hopes isn't absinthe. They _do_ have to work tomorrow. 

 

"Alright, flip a coin," Maria tells Fury, lining up shot glasses on the small table between them. Phil unsurprisingly comes out having to go first. "Russian rules?" Fury asks, and Phil gives up before they've even begun. It's agreed between the three of them that they'll play by Natasha's sadistic 'Russian Rules', where each person has to take three questions one after the other and answer them or drink a shot for each one they can't adequately answer, at the decision of their fellow players. 

 

"Question one," begins Sitwell theatrically. "Have you ever had a crush on another agent?" 

Phil rolls his eyes. "Like each of you haven't!? Yes, Jasper, the answer is yes."

"Hmm," Maria turns over one glass 'to keep the truth in'.

 

"Alright my turn. Do you currently have a crush on a fellow member of SHIELD?" Fury carefully asks, staring at Phil.

He takes a little longer to answer this one, eventually rolling his eyes again and replying yes. "I feel like that was quite a hesitation there," Maria says, pouring half a glass of bright green absinthe as the other two hmm in agreement. Phil sighs and drinks it, feels it mingle with the things he's already consumed as he upends it on the table, leaving a green ring.

 

Phil's expecting the third question, from Maria, who never stops teasing him about it, to be whether or not he has a crush on Steve Rogers, and so is actually blindsided when she asks him, "Is it Barton?" 

 

He blushes, actually blushes! And nods but drinks anyway. He feels like the burn of the alcohol is what makes his face feel so warm.

 

"Don't say anything," Phil asks Maria quietly, later on when Fury's in the bathroom and Sitwell is trying to dance into a group of bachelorette partiers. 

She rolls her eyes at him then, having revealed that indeed she had 'rubbed one out' in her office before and that yes it was after a meeting with Bruce, so unlikely to reveal anything of Phil's secret. "You're both such idiots, you deserve each other. Just... do something before either of you has another long mission, ok? None of us deserves the way you both pine."

 

\---

 

Natasha meets Hill's eyes and they give each other the briefest of nods when they step off the helicopter. Phil asks Clint out after debrief and once the worst of his hangover's gone. It takes a few months for them to really figure things out, and Phil has to convince Clint that he's not just in it for a few one night stands, and Clint slowly convinces Phil that he truly thinks he's the sexiest man he's ever met. To everyone else they maintain that they'd have figured it out on their own eventually anyhow, regardless of other peoples' meddling. But whenever they exchange endearments in hearing range of Maria or Natasha they get a smug look of satisfaction that never fails to irritate them both.


End file.
